Search Engine Optimisation and life…
Google is rumoured to be pushing out a PageRank update for the New Year. There are reports of a PageRank update in the Google Toolbar.
Although PageRank is not really a useful metric to SEOs (its often out of date) its a nice ‘trophy’ to advertise how popular your web site is. After all we all like to see a healthy green bar on the Google toolbar don’t we?
How has this update affected your PageRank?
Today is the last day of 2009, and so fitting, I feel, to write a post about what 2009 had to offer us in the world of Search.
Search made some great strides in 2009, and we saw alot of changes to the way that search engines deliver results to users. The recent introduction of real time search (providing results from Social Media Channels such as Twitter) was probably the most significant change this year.
Search also became very personalised in 2009, with the introduction of Google Wiki. This allows users to manage their own results (through promotion of or removal of) when they are signed into their Google account. At the time this was seen as a potential problem for SEO consultants, but in fairness I think it has done more to enhance the experience of search for the end user.
Of course, its difficult to talk about 2009 and not mention the introduction of BING. Even if you still haven’t been convinced or are not a big fan Bing seems to have had a clear influence on Google. If it wasn’t for Bing we may have been still waiting for real time search results for example.
It’s also hard to forget the Google broke its own search results (well, here in the UK anyway) during 2009. Thousands of UK searchers were being delivered US relative results. I know that this caused many SEO’s problems for a short period of time.
We have also seen the introduction of and extreme growth of many Search and Social Media Tools . Twitter is probably the cherry on the icing on the cake, as millions of internet users and businesses ‘Tweet’ to make themselves heard. Google Wave, a personal communication and collaboration tool, was also introduced through ‘invitation’ to around 100,000 users. We think that Wave will make great strides in the first quarter of 2010.
I am sure 2010 will be a very interesting year for search.
Happy New Year!
Well, another year end is almost upon us – and doesn’t time fly when you are having fun!?
It’s that time when us SEO’s start to look forward to the new year, and what challenges and changes it brings to the world of Search Engine Optimisation. 2009 saw alot of change and revelations such as Google denying the duplicate content penalty, changes to Page Rank sculpting and the introduction of real time social media being included in search results.
So what challenges will 2010 present us with? Here are my top 5 predictions.
1. Real Time Search will be huge in 2010 – but to what benefit?
The growth of social networking sites, such as Twitter, simply cannot be ignored. Late in 2009 Microsoft started to include real time social media feeds in their results pages, and Google promptly followed. However, this isn’t neccesarily good for SEO as it potentially detracts from the need for quality content and inbound links. Why not just tweet about a topic in order to get noticed? The flip side of this is that real time search surely can only show the results for seconds as live results will change nearly every millisecond.
2. Search Engine Results Evolution could me less traffic
What do I mean by this? Over the last 6 months we have seen more and more results displaying additional information in the actual search engine listings. For example, type in the name of a Football Club whilst they are playing a live game and you will probably see the actual realtime score in the SERPs. Great for searchers who are looking for quick fire information, but maybe not so good for site owners relying on click throughs.
3. Organic SEO spend will rise
More and more companies will turn to organic SEO in an attempt to increase traffic to their site. Organic SEO continues to outpace PPC in terms of growth, and 2010 will be no different. More and more searchers become ‘suspicious’ of PPC results whilst trust in the organic results grows. This is surely a sign that the search engines have been doing the right thing when it comes to delivering results that searchers want to see? What this might mean is that SEO’s are employed in house, rather than as an external resource. Time will tell.
4. The conversion metric will be king
2010 will see a greater emphasis on conversion. In the past SEO’s have mainly focused on driving traffic, whilst the more dynamic SEO professionals will also have put a strong focus on conversions. I personally beleive that 2010 will be the year of improving bounce rate and converting prospects to enquiries and enquiries to sales.
5. The Top 3 positions in the SERPS will become more valuable then ever
Generally speaking, sites that have been on the first page of the search results have tended to get the majority share of the traffic, but towards the end of the year we saw a trend that our sites in the top 3 ranking positions started to grow dramatically in terms of visitors. This could be mainly down to the amount of information that Google is now trying to cram onto the first page of the SERPS since its ‘Caffeine’ engine was implemented. Never the less, this makes SEO much more competitive and potentially more expensive for clients but the ROI from investment could also be much more rewarding.
In Summary
Of course, as we have seen with 2009, the world of Search Engine Optimisation can change on a regular basis and our friends at Google are quite happy to keep the majority of these changes under the hat and keep us all guessing.
What I am certain of though, is that 2010 will be a very big year for search, and with the right mindset and SEO company it could also be a very rewarding year for your business.
Have a very Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year from all of us at eSoftware Solutions.
